Mechanism for selecting instructions for execution in a multithreaded processor

ABSTRACT

In one embodiment, a multithreaded processor includes a plurality of buffers, each configured to store instructions corresponding to a respective thread. The multithreaded processor also includes a pick unit coupled to the plurality of buffers. The pick unit may pick from at least one of the buffers in a given cycle, a valid instruction based upon a thread selection algorithm. The pick unit may further cancel, in the given cycle, the picking of the valid instruction in response to receiving a cancel indication.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

1. Field of the Invention

This invention relates to multithreaded processors and, moreparticularly, to thread scheduling and selection in a multithreadedprocessor.

2. Description of the Related Art

Computer processor designs have been improved in a number of ways.Microarchitectures have evolved from single execution unit machines tosuperscalar designs having multiple pipelines and multiple executionunits. To accommodate changing processing environments such as serverbased applications, for example, a more recent processor design trendincludes multithreaded processors capable of executing multiple threadsconcurrently.

One aspect of multithreading involves thread selection and scheduling. Athread may have various instruction dependencies that may cause it tostall in the pipeline, while another thread may be able to execute.Processing may become inefficient if a ready thread is not scheduled assoon as an executing thread stalls, depending on how long the thread isstalled. Furthermore, depending on available resources, the schedulingprocess must be fair in choosing which threads to execute in order toprevent thread starvation.

SUMMARY

Various embodiments of a method for instruction selection in amultithreaded processor are disclosed. In one embodiment, amultithreaded processor includes a plurality of buffers, each configuredto store instructions corresponding to a respective thread. Themultithreaded processor also includes a pick unit coupled to theplurality of buffers. The pick unit may pick from at least one of thebuffers in a given cycle, a valid instruction based upon a threadselection algorithm. The pick unit may further cancel, in the givencycle, the picking of the valid instruction in response to receiving acancel indication.

In one specific implementation the pick unit may also concurrentlydetermine, for each of the respective threads, whether one or more waitconditions are present. The wait conditions may include schedulinghazards and/or dependencies, for example.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating one embodiment of a multithreadedprocessor.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram of one embodiment of a core, as illustrated inFIG. 1, configured to perform fine-grained multithreading.

FIG. 3 is a pipeline diagram illustrating the flow of integerinstructions through one embodiment of the core of FIG. 2.

FIG. 4 is a block diagram illustrating more detailed aspects of oneembodiment of the core of FIG. 2.

FIG. 5 is a pipeline diagram illustrating the flow of an integer loadinstruction and a dependent operation through one embodiment of the coreof FIG. 2.

FIG. 6 is a block diagram of one embodiment of the instruction buffershown in of FIG. 4.

FIG. 7 is a block diagram of one embodiment of a system including amultithreaded processor.

While the invention is susceptible to various modifications andalternative forms, specific embodiments thereof are shown by way ofexample in the drawings and will herein be described in detail. Itshould be understood, however, that the drawings and detaileddescription thereto are not intended to limit the invention to theparticular form disclosed, but on the contrary, the intention is tocover all modifications, equivalents, and alternatives falling withinthe spirit and scope of the present invention as defined by the appendedclaims. Note, the headings are for organizational purposes only and arenot meant to be used to limit or interpret the description or claims.Furthermore, note that the word “may” is used throughout thisapplication in a permissive sense (i.e., having the potential to, beingable to), not a mandatory sense (i.e., must). The term “include” andderivations thereof mean “including, but not limited to.” The term“connected” means “directly or indirectly connected,” and the term“coupled” means “directly or indirectly coupled.”

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF EMBODIMENTS

Overview of Multithreaded Processor Architecture

A block diagram illustrating one embodiment of a multithreaded processor10 is shown in FIG. 1. In the illustrated embodiment, processor 10includes a plurality of processor cores 100 a-h, which are alsodesignated “core 0” though “core 7”. Each of cores 100 is coupled to anL2 cache 120 via a crossbar 110. L2 cache 120 is coupled to one or morememory interface(s) 130, which are coupled in turn to one or more banksof system memory (not shown). Additionally, crossbar 110 couples cores100 to input/output (I/O) interface 140, which is in turn coupled to aperipheral interface 150 and a network interface 160. As described ingreater detail below, I/O interface 140, peripheral interface 150 andnetwork interface 160 may respectively couple processor 10 to bootand/or service devices, peripheral devices, and a network.

Cores 100 may be configured to execute instructions and to process dataaccording to a particular instruction set architecture (ISA). In oneembodiment, cores 100 may be configured to implement the SPARC® V9 ISA,although in other embodiments it is contemplated that any desired ISAmay be employed, such as x86, PowerPC® or MIPS®, for example. In theillustrated embodiment, each of cores 100 may be configured to operateindependently of the others, such that all cores 100 may execute inparallel. Additionally, as described below in conjunction with thedescriptions of FIG. 2 and FIG. 5, in some embodiments each of cores 100may be configured to execute multiple threads concurrently, where agiven thread may include a set of instructions that may executeindependently of instructions from another thread. (For example, anindividual software process, such as an application, may consist of oneor more threads that may be scheduled for execution by an operatingsystem.) Such a core 100 may also be referred to as a multithreaded (MT)core. In one embodiment, each of cores 100 may be configured toconcurrently execute instructions from eight threads, for a total of 64threads concurrently executing across processor 10. However, in otherembodiments it is contemplated that other numbers of cores 100 may beprovided, and that cores 100 may concurrently process different numbersof threads.

Crossbar 110 may be configured to manage data flow between cores 100 andthe shared L2 cache 120. In one embodiment, crossbar 110 may includelogic (such as multiplexers or a switch fabric, for example) that allowsany core 100 to access any bank of L2 cache 120, and that converselyallows data to be returned from any L2 bank to any core 100. Crossbar110 may be configured to concurrently process data requests from cores100 to L2 cache 120 as well as data responses from L2 cache 120 to cores100. In some embodiments, crossbar 110 may include logic to queue datarequests and/or responses, such that requests and responses may notblock other activity while waiting for service. Additionally, in oneembodiment crossbar 110 may be configured to arbitrate conflicts thatmay occur when multiple cores 100 attempt to access a single bank of L2cache 120 or vice versa.

L2 cache 120 may be configured to cache instructions and data for use bycores 100. In the illustrated embodiment, L2 cache 120 may be organizedinto eight separately addressable banks that may each be independentlyaccessed, such that in the absence of conflicts, each bank mayconcurrently return data to a respective core 100. In some embodiments,each individual bank may be implemented using set-associative ordirect-mapped techniques. For example, in one embodiment, L2 cache 120may be a 4 megabyte (MB) cache, where each 512 kilobyte (KB) bank is16-way set associative with a 64-byte line size, although other cachesizes and geometries are possible and contemplated. L2 cache 120 may beimplemented in some embodiments as a writeback cache in which written(dirty) data may not be written to system memory until a correspondingcache line is evicted.

In some embodiments, L2 cache 120 may implement queues for requestsarriving from and results to be sent to crossbar 110. Additionally, insome embodiments L2 cache 120 may implement a fill buffer configured tostore fill data arriving from memory interface 130, a writeback bufferconfigured to store dirty evicted data to be written to memory, and/or amiss buffer configured to store L2 cache accesses that cannot beprocessed as simple cache hits (e.g., L2 cache misses, cache accessesmatching older misses, accesses such as atomic operations that mayrequire multiple cache accesses, etc.). L2 cache 120 may variously beimplemented as single-ported or multiported (i.e., capable of processingmultiple concurrent read and/or write accesses). In either case, L2cache 120 may implement arbitration logic to prioritize cache accessamong various cache read and write requesters.

Memory interface 130 may be configured to manage the transfer of databetween L2 cache 120 and system memory, for example in response to L2fill requests and data evictions. In some embodiments, multipleinstances of memory interface 130 may be implemented, with each instanceconfigured to control a respective bank of system memory. Memoryinterface 130 may be configured to interface to any suitable type ofsystem memory, such as Fully Buffered Dual Inline Memory Module(FB-DIMM), Double Data Rate or Double Data Rate 2 Synchronous DynamicRandom Access Memory (DDR/DDR2 SDRAM), or Rambus® DRAM (RDRAM®), forexample. In some embodiments, memory interface 130 may be configured tosupport interfacing to multiple different types of system memory.

In the illustrated embodiment, processor 10 may also be configured toreceive data from sources other than system memory. I/O interface 140may be configured to provide a central interface for such sources toexchange data with cores 100 and/or L2 cache 120 via crossbar 110. Insome embodiments, I/O interface 140 may be configured to coordinateDirect Memory Access (DMA) transfers of data between network interface160 or peripheral interface 150 and system memory via memory interface130. In addition to coordinating access between crossbar 110 and otherinterface logic, in one embodiment I/O interface 140 may be configuredto couple processor 10 to external boot and/or service devices. Forexample, initialization and startup of processor 10 may be controlled byan external device (such as, e.g., a Field Programmable Gate Array(FPGA)) that may be configured to provide an implementation- orsystem-specific sequence of boot instructions and data. Such a bootsequence may, for example, coordinate reset testing, initialization ofperipheral devices and initial execution of processor 10, before theboot process proceeds to load data from a disk or network device.Additionally, in some embodiments such an external device may beconfigured to place processor 10 in a debug, diagnostic, or other typeof service mode upon request.

Peripheral interface 150 may be configured to coordinate data transferbetween processor 10 and one or more peripheral devices. Such peripheraldevices may include, without limitation, storage devices (e.g., magneticor optical media-based storage devices including hard drives, tapedrives, CD drives, DVD drives, etc.), display devices (e.g., graphicssubsystems), multimedia devices (e.g., audio processing subsystems), orany other suitable type of peripheral device. In one embodiment,peripheral interface 150 may implement one or more instances of aninterface such as Peripheral Component Interface Express (PCI-Express),although it is contemplated that any suitable interface standard orcombination of standards may be employed. For example, in someembodiments peripheral interface 150 may be configured to implement aversion of Universal Serial Bus (USB) protocol or EEE 1394 (Firewire)protocol in addition to or instead of PCI-Express.

Network interface 160 may be configured to coordinate data transferbetween processor 10 and one or more devices (e.g., other computersystems) coupled to processor 10 via a network. In one embodiment,network interface 160 may be configured to perform the data processingnecessary to implement an Ethernet (IEEE 802.3) networking standard suchas Gigabit Ethernet or 10-Gigabit Ethernet, for example, although it iscontemplated that any suitable networking standard may be implemented.In some embodiments, network interface 160 may be configured toimplement multiple discrete network interface ports.

Overview of Fine-Grained Multithreading Processor Core

As mentioned above, in one embodiment each of cores 100 may beconfigured for multithreaded execution. More specifically, in oneembodiment each of cores 100 may be configured to perform fine-grainedmultithreading, in which each core may select instructions to executefrom among a pool of instructions corresponding to multiple threads,such that instructions from different threads may be scheduled toexecute adjacently. For example, in a pipelined embodiment of core 100employing fine-grained multithreading, instructions from differentthreads may occupy adjacent pipeline stages, such that instructions fromseveral threads may be in various stages of execution during a givencore processing cycle.

One embodiment of core 100 configured to perform fine-grainedmultithreading is illustrated in FIG. 2. In the illustrated embodiment,core 100 includes an instruction fetch unit (IFU) 200 coupled to amemory management unit (MMU) 250, a crossbar interface 260, a trap logicunit (TLU) 270, and a plurality of execution units (EXUO, EXUL) 210 a-b.(Execution units 210 a-b may also be referred to generically as EXUs210.) Each of execution units 210 a-b is coupled to both a floatingpoint/graphics unit (FGU) 220 and a load store unit (LSU) 230. Each ofthe latter units is also coupled to send data back to each of executionunits 210 a-b. Both FGU 220 and LSU 230 are coupled to a streamprocessing unit (SPU) 240. Additionally, LSU 230, SPU 240 and MMU 250are coupled to crossbar interface 260, which is in turn coupled tocrossbar 110 shown in FIG. 1.

Instruction fetch unit 200 may be configured to provide instructions tothe rest of core 100 for execution. In the illustrated embodiment, IFU200 includes a fetch unit 202, an instruction pick unit 206, and adecode unit 208. Fetch unit 202 further includes an instruction cache204. In one embodiment, fetch unit 202 may include logic to maintainfetch addresses (e.g., derived from program counters) corresponding toeach thread being executed by core 100, and to coordinate the retrievalof instructions from instruction cache 204 according to those fetchaddresses. In some embodiments, instruction cache 202 may include feweraccess ports than the number of threads executable on core 100, in whichcase fetch unit 202 may implement arbitration logic configured to selectone or more threads for instruction fetch during a given executioncycle. For example, fetch unit 202 may implement aleast-recently-fetched algorithm to select a thread to fetch. Fetch unit202 may also implement logic to handle instruction cache misses andtranslation of virtual instruction fetch addresses to physical addresses(e.g., fetch unit 202 may include an Instruction Translation LookasideBuffer (ITLB)). Additionally, in some embodiments fetch unit 202 mayinclude logic to predict branch outcomes and/or fetch target addresses,such as a Branch History Table (BHT), Branch Target Buffer (BTB), orother suitable structure, for example.

In one embodiment, fetch unit 202 may be configured to maintain a poolof fetched, ready-for-issue instructions drawn from among each of thethreads being executed by core 100. For example, fetch unit 202 mayimplement a respective instruction buffer (not shown in FIG. 2)corresponding to each thread in which several recently fetchedinstructions from the corresponding thread may be stored. In oneembodiment, instruction pick unit 206 may be configured to select one ormore instructions to be decoded and issued to execution units 210. Inthe illustrated embodiment, the threads fetched by fetch unit 202 may bedivided into two thread groups denoted TG0 and TG1 (for example, if core100 implements eight threads, each of TG0 and TG1 may include fourthreads).

Pick unit 206, in the illustrated embodiment, may be configured toattempt to select one instruction to schedule for execution from each ofTG0 and TG1, such that two instructions may be selected for executionduring a given execution cycle. For example, pick unit 206 may employ aleast-recently-picked (LRP) algorithm in which the least recently pickedthread within a given thread group that is ready for execution isselected. It is noted that in one embodiment, thread fetching asperformed by fetch unit 202 and instruction selection as performed bypick unit 206 may be largely independent of one another.

As will be described in further detail below in conjunction with thedescriptions of FIG. 4 and FIG. 5, in one embodiment, pick unit 206 mayemploy an instruction selection algorithm that takes instructionscheduling factors into account. As such, a picked instruction may becanceled during the cycle in which it is picked. For example, in oneembodiment pick unit 206 may be configured to identify source operanddependencies that a given picked instruction may have on a previouslyissued instruction, and may configure other logic to appropriatelyselect source operands (e.g., from a register file, or from a previousexecution cycle via bypass logic). However, it is noted that in someembodiments, pick unit 206 may schedule instructions before all factorsaffecting instruction scheduling are known (e.g., instructiondependencies, implementation-specific resource hazards, etc.), in whichcase a picked instruction may be canceled at a later execution stage.Further, it is contemplated that in some embodiments, pick unit 206 maybe configured to select more than two instructions for execution in agiven execution cycle, or may select instructions from all threadsrather than specific groups of threads.

Decode unit 208 may be configured to further prepare instructionsselected by pick unit 206 for execution. In the illustrated embodiment,decode unit 208 may be configured to identify the specific type of agiven instruction, such as whether the instruction is an integer,floating point, load/store, or other type of instruction, as well as toidentify operands required by the given instruction. Additionally, inone embodiment decode unit 208 may be configured to detect and respondto scheduling hazards not detected during operation of pick unit 206.For example, in the illustrated embodiment, only one load store unit 230is provided. Consequently, if two load/store-type instructions werepicked for execution, decode unit 208 may be configured to cancel orstall one of those instructions and allow the other to be issued. Insuch an embodiment, decode unit 208 may employ an arbitration algorithmto determine which instruction to issue without favoring a particularthread or thread group. Numerous other types of scheduling and resourcehazards detectable by decode unit 208 are possible and contemplated.

In addition, in some embodiments, instructions from a given thread maybe speculatively issued from decode unit 208 for execution. For example,a given instruction from a certain thread may fall in the shadow of aconditional branch instruction from that same thread that was predictedto be taken or not-taken, or a load instruction from that same threadthat was predicted to hit in data cache 235, but for which the actualoutcome has not yet been determined. In such embodiments, afterreceiving notice of a misspeculation such as a branch misprediction or aload miss, IFU 200 may be configured to cancel misspeculatedinstructions from a given thread as well as issued instructions from thegiven thread that are dependent on or subsequent to the misspeculatedinstruction, and to redirect instruction fetch appropriately.

Execution units 210 a-b may be configured to execute and provide resultsfor certain types of instructions issued from IFU 200. In oneembodiment, each of EXUs 210 may be similarly or identically configuredto execute certain integer-type instructions defined in the implementedISA, such as arithmetic, logical, and shift instructions. In theillustrated embodiment, EXUO 210 a may be configured to execute integerinstructions issued from TG0, while EXUL 210 b may be configured toexecute integer instructions issued from TG1. Further, each of EXUs 210may include an integer register file configured to store register stateinformation for all threads in its respective thread group. For example,if core 100 implements eight threads 0-7 where threads 0-3 are bound toTG0 and threads 4-7 are bound to TG1, EXU0 210 a may store integerregister state for each of threads 0-3 while EXUL 210 b may storeinteger register state for each of threads 4-7. It is contemplated thatin some embodiments, core 100 may include more or fewer than two EXUs210, and EXUs 210 may or may not be symmetric in functionality. Also, insome embodiments EXUs 210 may not be bound to specific thread groups ormay be differently bound than just described. Finally, in theillustrated embodiment instructions destined for FGU 220 or LSU 230 passthrough one of EXUs 210. However, in alternative embodiments it iscontemplated that such instructions may be issued directly from IFU 200to their respective units without passing through one of EXUs 210.

Floating point/graphics unit 220 may be configured to execute andprovide results for certain floating-point and graphics-orientedinstructions defined in the implemented ISA. For example, in oneembodiment FGU 220 may implement single- and double-precisionfloating-point arithmetic instructions compliant with the IEEE 754floating-point standard, such as add, subtract, multiply, divide, andcertain transcendental functions. Also, in one embodiment FGU 220 mayimplement Single Instruction Multiple Data (SIMD) graphics-orientedinstructions defined by a version of the SPARC Visual Instruction Set(VIS) architecture, such as VIS 2.0. Additionally, in one embodiment FGU220 may implement certain integer instructions such as integer multiply,divide, and population count instructions. Depending on theimplementation of FGU 220, some instructions (e.g., some transcendentalor extended-precision instructions) or instruction operand or resultscenarios (e.g., certain denormal operands or expected results) may betrapped and handled or emulated by software.

In the illustrated embodiment, FGU 220 may be configured to storefloating-point register state information for each thread in afloating-point register file. In one embodiment, FGU 220 may implementseparate execution pipelines for floating point add/multiply,divide/square root, and graphics operations, while in other embodimentsthe instructions implemented by FGU 220 may be differently partitioned.In various embodiments, instructions implemented by FGU 220 may be fullypipelined (i.e., FGU 220 may be capable of starting one new instructionper execution cycle), partially pipelined, or may block issue untilcomplete, depending on the instruction type. For example, in oneembodiment floating-point add operations may be fully pipelined, whilefloating-point divide operations may block other divide/square rootoperations until completed.

Load store unit 230 may be configured to process data memory references,such as integer and floating-point load and store instructions as wellas memory requests that may originate from stream processing unit 240.In some embodiments, LSU 230 may also be configured to assist in theprocessing of instruction cache 204 misses originating from IFU 200. LSU230 may include a data cache 235 as well as logic configured to detectcache misses and to responsively request data from L2 cache 120 viacrossbar interface 260. In one embodiment, data cache 235 may beconfigured as a write-through cache in which all stores are written toL2 cache 120 regardless of whether they hit in data cache 235; in somesuch embodiments, stores that miss in data cache 235 may cause an entrycorresponding to the store data to be allocated within the cache. Inother embodiments, data cache 235 may be implemented as a write-backcache.

In one embodiment, LSU 230 may include a miss queue configured to storerecords of pending memory accesses that have missed in data cache 235such that additional memory accesses targeting memory addresses forwhich a miss is pending may not generate additional L2 cache requesttraffic. In the illustrated embodiment, address generation for aload/store instruction may be performed by one of EXUs 210. Depending onthe addressing mode specified by the instruction, one of EXUs 210 mayperform arithmetic (such as adding an index value to a base value, forexample) to yield the desired address. Additionally, in some embodimentsLSU 230 may include logic configured to translate virtual data addressesgenerated by EXUs 210 to physical addresses, such as a Data TranslationLookaside Buffer (DTLB).

Stream processing unit 240 may be configured to implement one or morespecific data processing algorithms in hardware. For example, SPU 240may include logic configured to support encryption/decryption algorithmssuch as Advanced Encryption Standard (AES), Data EncryptionStandard/Triple Data Encryption Standard (DES/3 DES), or Ron's Code #4(RC4). SPU 240 may also include logic to implement hash or checksumalgorithms such as Secure Hash Algorithm (SHA-1, SHA-256), MessageDigest 5 (MD5), or Cyclic Redundancy Checksum (CRC). SPU 240 may also beconfigured to implement modular arithmetic such as modularmultiplication, reduction and exponentiation. In one embodiment, SPU 240may be configured to utilize the multiply array included in FGU 220 formodular multiplication. In various embodiments, SPU 240 may implementseveral of the aforementioned algorithms as well as other algorithms notspecifically described.

SPU 240 may be configured to execute as a coprocessor independent ofinteger or floating-point instruction execution. For example, in oneembodiment SPU 240 may be configured to receive operations and operandsvia control registers accessible via software; in the illustratedembodiment SPU 240 may access such control registers via LSU 230. Inanother embodiment SPU 240 may receive operations and operands decodedand issued from the instruction stream by IFU 200. In some embodiments,SPU 240 may be configured to freely schedule operations across itsvarious algorithmic subunits independent of other functional unitactivity. Additionally, SPU 240 may be configured to generate memoryload and store activity. In the illustrated embodiment, SPU 240 mayinteract directly with crossbar interface 260 for such memory activity,while in other embodiments SPU 240 may coordinate memory activitythrough LSU 230. In one embodiment, software may poll SPU 240 throughone or more control registers to determine result status and to retrieveready results, for example by accessing additional control registers. Inother embodiments, FGU 220, LSU 230 or other logic may be configured topoll SPU 240 at intervals to determine whether it has ready results towrite back. In still other embodiments, SPU 240 may be configured togenerate a trap when a result is ready, to allow software to coordinateresult retrieval and processing.

As previously described, instruction and data memory accesses mayinvolve translating virtual addresses to physical addresses. In oneembodiment, such translation may occur on a page level of granularity,where a certain number of address bits comprise an offset into a givenpage of addresses, and the remaining address bits comprise a pagenumber. For example, in an embodiment employing 4 MB pages, a 64-bitvirtual address and a 40-bit physical address, 22 address bits(corresponding to 4 MB of address space, and typically the leastsignificant address bits) may constitute the page offset. The remaining42 bits of the virtual address may correspond to the virtual page numberof that address, and the remaining 18 bits of the physical address maycorrespond to the physical page number of that address. In such anembodiment, virtual to physical address translation may occur by mappinga virtual page number to a particular physical page number, leaving thepage offset unmodified.

Such translation mappings may be stored in an ITLB or a DTLB for rapidtranslation of virtual addresses during lookup of instruction cache 204or data cache 235. In the event no translation for a given virtual pagenumber is found in the appropriate TLB, memory management unit 250 maybe configured to provide a translation. In one embodiment, MMU 250 maybe configured to manage one or more translation tables stored in systemmemory and to traverse such tables (which in some embodiments may behierarchically organized) in response to a request for an addresstranslation, such as from an ITLB or DTLB miss. (Such a traversal mayalso be referred to as a page table walk.) In some embodiments, if MMU250 is unable to derive a valid address translation, for example if oneof the memory pages including a necessary page table is not resident inphysical memory (i.e., a page miss), MMU 250 may be configured togenerate a trap to allow a memory management software routine to handlethe translation. It is contemplated that in various embodiments, anydesirable page size may be employed. Further, in some embodimentsmultiple page sizes may be concurrently supported.

A number of functional units in the illustrated embodiment of core 100may be configured to generate off-core memory or I/O requests. Forexample, IFU 200 or LSU 230 may generate access requests to L2 cache 120in response to their respective cache misses. SPU 240 may be configuredto generate its own load and store requests independent of LSU 230, andMMU 250 may be configured to generate memory requests while executing apage table walk. Other types of off-core access requests are possibleand contemplated. In the illustrated embodiment, crossbar interface 260may be configured to provide a centralized interface to the port ofcrossbar 110 associated with a particular core 100, on behalf of thevarious functional units that may generate accesses that traversecrossbar 110. In one embodiment, crossbar interface 260 may beconfigured to maintain queues of pending crossbar requests and toarbitrate among pending requests to determine which request or requestsmay be conveyed to crossbar 110 during a given execution cycle. Forexample, crossbar interface 260 may implement a least-recently-used orother algorithm to arbitrate among crossbar requesters. In oneembodiment, crossbar interface 260 may also be configured to receivedata returned via crossbar 110, such as from L2 cache 120 or I/Ointerface 140, and to direct such data to the appropriate functionalunit (e.g., data cache 235 for a data cache fill due to miss). In otherembodiments, data returning from crossbar 110 may be processedexternally to crossbar interface 260.

During the course of operation of some embodiments of core 100,exceptional events may occur. For example, an instruction from a giventhread that is picked for execution by pick unit 206 may be not be avalid instruction for the ISA implemented by core 100 (e.g., theinstruction may have an illegal opcode), a floating-point instructionmay produce a result that requires further processing in software, MMU250 may not be able to complete a page table walk due to a page miss, ahardware error (such as uncorrectable data corruption in a cache orregister file) may be detected, or any of numerous other possiblearchitecturally-defined or implementation-specific exceptional eventsmay occur. In one embodiment, trap logic unit 270 may be configured tomanage the handling of such events. For example, TLU 270 may beconfigured to receive notification of an exceptional event occurringduring execution of a particular thread, and to cause execution controlof that thread to vector to a supervisor-mode software handler (i.e., atrap handler) corresponding to the detected event. Such handlers mayinclude, for example, an illegal opcode trap handler configured toreturn an error status indication to an application associated with thetrapping thread and possibly terminate the application, a floating-pointtrap handler configured to fix up an inexact result, etc.

In one embodiment, TLU 270 may be configured to flush all instructionsfrom the trapping thread from any stage of processing within core 100,without disrupting the execution of other, non-trapping threads. In someembodiments, when a specific instruction from a given thread causes atrap (as opposed to a trap-causing condition independent of instructionexecution, such as a hardware interrupt request), TLU 270 may implementsuch traps as precise traps. That is, TLU 270 may ensure that allinstructions from the given thread that occur before the trappinginstruction (in program order) complete and update architectural state,while no instructions from the given thread that occur after thetrapping instruction (in program) order complete or update architecturalstate.

Exemplary Core Pipeline Functionality

In the illustrated embodiment, core 100 may be configured for pipelinedexecution, in which processing of new instructions may begin beforeolder instructions have completed, such that multiple instructions fromvarious threads may be in various stages of processing during a givencore execution cycle. A pipeline diagram illustrating the flow ofinteger instructions through one embodiment of core 100 is shown in FIG.3. In the illustrated embodiment, execution of integer instructions isdivided into eight stages, denoted Fetch (F), Cache (C), Pick (P),Decode (D), Execute (E), Memory (M), Bypass (B), and Writeback (W). Inother embodiments, it is contemplated that different numbers of pipestages corresponding to different types of functionality may beemployed. It is further contemplated that other pipelines of differentstructure and depth may be implemented for integer or otherinstructions. For example, floating-point instructions may execute in alonger pipeline than integer instructions.

The first four stages of the illustrated integer pipeline may generallycorrespond to the functioning of IFU 200. In one embodiment, during theFetch stage, one or more threads to fetch may be selected, andinstruction cache 204 may be accessed for the selected thread. Duringthe Cache stage, fetch unit 202 may determine whether the access of theprevious cycle hit or missed the cache. If the access hit, theinstructions read from the cache may be stored in instruction buffers.During the Pick stage, pick unit 206 may be configured in one embodimentto select at most two instructions to issue, one for each thread groupas described above. Source dependencies of the selected instructions onpreviously issued instructions may also be detected during the Pickstage. During the Decode stage, decode unit 208 may be configured todecode the selected instructions and to determine whether resourcehazards exist as described above. For integer operations, data operandsmay also be selected during the Decode stage. For example, operands maybe retrieved from an integer register file, or bypass logic may beconfigured to bypass operands from another pipe stage.

During the Execute stage, one or both of execution units 210 may beactive to compute an instruction result. If an instruction in theinteger execution pipeline is not a load or store instruction, in theillustrated embodiment it may be idle during the Memory and Bypassstages before its result is committed (i.e., written back to the integerregister file) in the Writeback stage. A load or store instruction mayhave its address calculated by one of execution units 210 during theExecute stage. During the Memory stage of a load instruction, data cache235 may be accessed, while during the Bypass stage, LSU 230 maydetermine whether a data cache hit or miss occurred. In the hit case,data may be forwarded to the appropriate execution unit 210 (e.g.,dependent on the thread group of the load instruction) to be committedduring the Writeback stage. In one embodiment, store instructions andload instructions that miss data cache 235 may execute with differentpipeline timing than shown in FIG. 3.

In the illustrated embodiment, integer instructions are depicted asexecuting back-to-back in the pipeline without stalls. Since there areno stalls shown, each of the instructions shown in the pipeline may beindependent of each other instruction. In other words, the instructionsmay not have any conflicting dependencies. In execution cycles 0 through7, instructions from threads 0, 3, 6, 2, 7, 5, 1 and 4 enter the Fetchstage, respectively, though in other embodiments, instructions may issuefrom various threads in a different order according to the operation ofpick unit 206. In some instances, other instructions issued prior toexecution cycle 0 may also be in the pipeline. Additionally, in someembodiments, two different instructions from the same or differentthreads may execute during the same pipeline stage. For example, in theillustrated embodiment of core 100, one integer instruction may beissued to each of execution units 210 in a single cycle.

By execution cycle 7, it is noted that each stage of the pipeline holdsan instruction from a different thread in a different stage ofexecution, in contrast to conventional processor implementations thattypically require a pipeline flush when switching between threads orprocesses. In some embodiments, flushes and stalls due to resourceconflicts or other scheduling hazards may cause some pipeline stages tohave no instruction during a given cycle. However, in the fine-grainedmultithreaded processor implementation employed by the illustratedembodiment of core 100, such flushes and stalls may be directed to asingle thread in the pipeline, leaving other threads undisturbed.Additionally, even if one thread being processed by core 100 stalls fora significant length of time (for example, due to an L2 cache miss),instructions from another thread may be readily selected for issue, thusincreasing overall thread processing throughput.

The Pick Process

As described above, pick unit 206 may attempt to select from each of TG0and TG1 one instruction to schedule for execution, such that twoinstructions may be independently selected during a given executioncycle. Details of the pick process are described below. FIG. 4 is ablock diagram including further aspects of the instruction fetch unit200 shown in FIG. 2. In addition to the functional blocks depicted inFIG. 2, fetch unit 202 includes instruction buffers 0 through 7.Further, pick unit 206 of FIG. 4 includes hazard detection andscheduling functionality 406, a least recently picked (LRP) unit 0,designated 407 A, and a LRP unit 1, designated 407B.

In the illustrated embodiment, each of instruction buffers 0-7 areconfigured to store fetched instructions that correspond to a respectivethread. Each instruction buffer may include a plurality of storagelocations for storing a plurality of instructions. Instruction buffers0-3 belong to TG0 and instruction buffers 4-7 belong to TG1. It is notedthat the program order of the instructions may be maintained byinstruction buffers 0-7 such that the instructions are provided inprogram order. In one embodiment, each of instruction buffers 0-7 mayreceive the instructions not in program order but may provide theinstructions in proper the program order. In such an embodiment, onespecific location, referred to as the pick location, in each instructionbuffer may be designated for storage of the oldest instruction storedwithin a given buffer. The pick location of each instruction buffer mayinclude a valid instruction indication, designated “V” that may be usedby an LRP algorithm. As the oldest instruction is stored into the picklocation of each instruction buffer 0-7 the valid bit is set to a valuewhich indicates that a valid instruction is present. Conversely, ifthere is no valid instruction in the picked location, the valid bit maybe set to a value which indicates that a valid instruction is notpresent an the entry is invalid. It is contemplated that in otherembodiments, other numbers of instruction buffers may be used and theymay also belong to other numbers of thread groups. It is further notedthat in alternative embodiments, the instructions may be provided toinstruction buffers 0-7 in program order.

In the illustrated embodiment, LRP 0 and LRP 1 provide control signalsdesignated Cntrl 0 and Cntrl 1, respectively, to the each of instructionbuffers in thread groups TG0 and TG1. In one embodiment, the controlsignals may include signals such as a shift signal, for example, thatmay cause the next oldest instruction to be loaded into the picklocation within each instruction buffer. It is noted that in otherembodiments, other signals may be used that have other functionality.

In the illustrated embodiment, LRP units 0 and 1 may each independentlydetermine, using an LRP selection algorithm (described below), fromwhich thread in the respective thread groups to pick an instruction ineach cycle. During each cycle, the least recently picked, validinstruction from a ready thread may be selected and sent to decode unit208. In one embodiment, each of LRP units 0 and 1 may maintain a threadstate machine in which a given thread may be in one of two states: readyor wait. A ready thread may be picked and sent down the pipeline, whilea thread in the wait state is not eligible to be picked.

Although each thread may start in the ready state, a thread maytransition into the wait state for various reasons or “wait conditions,”examples of which are described further below, and may remain in thewait state until the condition or conditions that caused it totransition are resolved. Thus, a thread may enter the wait state for onecycle or a number of cycles depending on the wait condition that may bepresent.

In one embodiment, during a pick initiation process, the instructionstored in the pick location of each of instruction buffers 0-7 may be atleast partially decoded in parallel with LRP 0 and LRP 1 picking aninstruction according to the LRP algorithm. More particularly, hazarddetect and scheduling unit 406 may include circuitry that may detectcertain hazards and scheduling dependencies that may cause a waitcondition to determine whether a given instruction should or should notbe sent to the decode stage in either the current cycle or subsequentcycles. If hazard detect and scheduling unit 406 detects such hazards ordependencies for a given instruction(s), hazard detect and schedulingunit 406 may notify LRP 0 and 1 with a wait indication to cause thethread corresponding to the instruction to transition to the wait stateto allow dependency and/or hardware hazards to resolve.

In addition, if hazard detect and scheduling unit 406 detects suchhazards or dependencies for a thread that is already picked for thecurrent cycle, a cancel indication may be provided to the correspondingLRP unit (e.g., LRP 0, LRP 1). In response to the cancel indication, thepick will be canceled for the current cycle and the picked thread may betransitioned to the wait state the following cycle. It is noted that ifthe pick is canceled, the shift signal may not be provided to thecorresponding buffer; thereby allowing the instruction to still beavailable in the pick location in the buffer. In addition, the LRPsequence may not be updated for that thread. Thus, when the threadtransitions to the ready state for subsequent pick cycles, the threadmay be picked. In certain cases, the wait condition may resolve in thesame cycle in which it transitioned to the wait state. If the waitcondition will resolve by the next cycle, the thread may still becanceled for the current cycle, but the thread will not transition tothe wait state and thus may be eligible to be picked the next cycle. Ineither case, if a pick is canceled a hole or bubble may be created inthe pipeline for the corresponding thread group for at least that cycle.

If there are no dependencies or hazards detected for the pickedinstruction, a signal such as the shift signal, for example, may beprovided to the corresponding instruction buffers by LRP 0 and LRP 1. Inaddition to the shift signal causing the next oldest instruction withinthe buffer to be loaded into the one pick location, the pickedinstruction for each thread group may be provided to decode unit 208.

In one embodiment, during each cycle, the LRP algorithm used by each ofLRP 0 and LRP 1 may use an LRP sequence to select a thread. The LRPsequence represents the order in which the ready threads may be picked.Each time a thread is picked, the sequence is updated and the pickedthread becomes the most recently picked and moves to the end of thesequence. If a thread is canceled after being picked, the LRP sequencefor the canceled thread is not updated; thus that thread may not loseits place in the LRP sequence when it transitions back to the readystate. For example, assume the LRP sequence for TG0 in the current cycleis 1,3,2,0. Further, if thread 1 is canceled after it is picked and isin the wait state for one cycle, the LRP sequence will stay 1, 3,2,0 forthe next cycle. However, since thread 1 is not ready, it is not eligibleto be picked, and thread 3 will be picked. The following cycle whenthread 1 ‘wakes up’ and transitions to the ready state, the LRP sequencebecomes 1,2,0,3. Thus, thread 1 did not lose its place in the LRPsequence. The ready state may be thought of as a masking function forthe LRP sequence. In one embodiment, when a thread is transitioned tothe wait state, it will be transitioned to the ready state as soon asthe condition upon which the thread is waiting is resolved.

As noted above, there may be many dependencies and/or hazard conditionswhich may cause a thread to transition to a wait state or be canceled.In Table 1 below, an exemplary listing of conditions and/or hazards thatmay cause a thread to transition to a wait state or to be canceledduring pick is illustrated. It is noted that the examples in Table 1 donot represent an exhaustive list of dependencies and hazards. It isfurther noted that the dependencies and/or hazard conditions may bedetected at various stages within the pipeline. TABLE 1 Example waitstate conditions Condition A delayed control-transfer-instruction isvalid at the pick stage and a corresponding delay slot has not yet beenstored within instruction buffers 0-7. If a store doubleword instructionis valid at the pick stage and an integer load is at decode. If adependency exists between one of the instruction sources at the pickstage and one of the instructions producing the result in a stagefurther down in the pipeline. If there would be a write after writehazard caused by the instruction at the pick stage and a prior floatingpoint instruction is already further down the pipe (e.g., a floatingpoint op followed by load-float). A window instruction is valid at thepick stage and there is a prior instruction at decode A floating pointinstruction with single precision sources is valid at the pick stage anda prior floating point instruction producing a double precision resultis already further down the pipeline. A floating point instruction withdouble precision sources is valid at the pick stage and a prior floatingpoint instruction producing a single precision result is already furtherdown the pipeline. A floating point instruction with floating pointcondition code sources is valid at the pick stage and a prior floatingpoint instruction producing floating point condition code results isalready further down the pipeline. A load or store floating point statusregister instruction is valid at the pick stage and any floating pointinstruction is already further down the pipeline. A store instruction isvalid at the pick stage and a store buffer is currently full. A divideinstruction is valid at the pick stage and one or more divides arecurrently outstanding. A floating point instruction with doubleprecision sources is valid at the pick stage and a prior load producinga floating point single precision result missed the data cache.An Exemplary Pipeline Diagram Including a Cancel Pick

An exemplary pipeline diagram illustrating the flow of an integer loadinstruction and a dependent operation from one thread through oneembodiment of core 100 is shown in FIG. 5. Although the pipeline diagramof FIG. 5 is similar to the pipeline diagram of FIG. 3, the Fetch (F)and Cache (C) stages have been omitted for simplicity. Thus, thepipeline of FIG. 5 is shown beginning with the pick (P) stage andincluding six stages: Pick (P), Decode (D), Execute (E), Memory (M),Bypass (B), and Writeback (W). Two additional rows have also been addedto the diagram of FIG. 5 to show the cancel pick indication and theinternal completion status.

During the Pick stage, pick unit 206 may be configured in one embodimentto select at most two instructions to issue, one for each thread groupas described above. However, for discussion purposes, the twoinstructions are issued from the same thread, such as would be the caseif the all of other threads were in the wait state. Source dependenciesof the selected instructions on previously issued instructions from agiven thread may also be detected by hazard detect and scheduling unit406 during the Pick stage. For example, referring collectively to FIG. 3through FIG. 5, an integer load instruction is picked in cycle 0 of FIG.5. The thread state corresponding to the integer load is ready.

In the next cycle (cycle 1), an instruction which is dependent on theinteger load has been picked and the dependency is detected in the samecycle. In the illustrated embodiment, the dependency may correspond tothe data operand not being available at the execution stage until cycle5. Accordingly, the dependent op has been canceled in cycle 1 and hastransitioned to the wait state for one cycle (cycle 2). In theillustrated embodiment, speculation about whether the load will hit inthe data cache is enabled. The integer load propagates down the pipelinethrough the Decode stage. For this integer load, data operands may beselected during the Decode stage, which may be retrieved from theinteger register file. In the Execute stage, one of the execution units210 may calculate the load address. It is noted that the cancellationand transitioning to the wait state for one cycle of the dependent opcreates a two-cycle hole in the pipeline for that thread. However, it isnoted that during cycle 2, an instruction may have been picked from adifferent thread in the same thread group that was ready (not shown).Thus, the pipeline may actually have only one hole.

During the Memory stage of the integer load instruction, data cache 235may be accessed, while during the Bypass stage, LSU 230 may determinewhether a data cache hit or miss occurred. In this example, sincespeculation is enabled, a hit is assumed, such that in cycle 4, data maybe forwarded to the appropriate execution unit 210. The data may becommitted during the Writeback stage in cycle 5. The forwarded data maybe used by the dependent op in cycle 5. Thus, pick unit 206 woke up thethread with the dependent operation and transitioned it to the readystate in time to operate on the forwarded data.

In one embodiment, to accommodate canceling of the pick in the samecycle in which an instruction is picked, the cancel pick indication, andthus the shift signal (described above), may be provided late in thecycle. Thus, the timing of the shift signal may play a critical role inallowing the next oldest instruction to be placed into the pick locationof the instruction buffer corresponding to the thread that was justpicked. In this way, that thread may be eligible for pick by LRP 0 orLRP 1 the next cycle. It is noted that instruction buffers 0-7 shown inFIG. 4 may be illustrative any type of buffer such as a shift FIFO or aqueue structure, for example. However, it is also noted that certainconventional queue structures may not meet the timing requirements ofthe some specific implementations due to the large fan out that may benecessary to drive multiplexer logic associated with queue structures.Further, certain conventional shift FIFO structures may also have delaysassociated with driving a large number of clocked elements with a singleshift clock. In addition, shift FIFO structures may consume a lot ofpower due to the shifting of the information in each location duringeach cycle in which data is shifted. As will be described in greaterdetail below in conjunction with the description of FIG. 6, a hybridbuffer may be implemented for each of instruction buffers 0-7.

Hybrid Buffer Structure

FIG. 6 is a block diagram of one embodiment of a hybrid instructionbuffer. The instruction buffer 600 includes queue structure 610 which iscoupled to a FIFO structure 650. In addition, hybrid instruction buffer600 includes control functionality 675 that is coupled to both the queuestructure 610 and the FIFO structure 650.

In the illustrated embodiment, queue structure 610 includes a pluralityof storage locations designated 0 through n−1, where n−1 may be anyinteger number. In one embodiment, an instruction may be written intoany available location within queue structure 610 each cycle. In oneembodiment, the write pointer shown in FIG. 6, includes pointers to fourlocations. Accordingly, in the illustrated embodiment, up to fourlocations may be written in each cycle. In a given cycle, up to fourinstructions from a single thread may be provided to instruction buffer600. In one embodiment, the instructions may be in program order. Inanother embodiment, the instructions may not be in program order. Ineither embodiment, control functionality 675 may keep track of theprogram order of the instructions using an ordering mechanism. In theillustrated embodiment, four instructions are stored within instructionbuffer 600. The instructions are I0, I1, I2 and I3, where I0 is theoldest instruction and I3 is the newest instruction in program order.Instructions I1, I2 and I3 are stored in queue structure 610. It isnoted that in other embodiments it is contemplated that other numbers ofinstructions may be stored within queue structure 610 in each cycle.

In the illustrated embodiment, FIFO structure 650 includes a singlestorage location for storing instruction I0 (e.g., the oldestinstruction in program order). In various embodiments, FIFO structure650 may be implemented using a flip-flop based design or a latch baseddesign as desired.

Control functionality 675 is configured to control writing and readingof hybrid buffer 600. In the illustrated embodiment, controlfunctionality 675 may receive a shift signal from, for example, pickunit 206 of FIG. 4. In response to the shift signal, controlfunctionality 675 may provide a shift enable signal to FIFO structure650. In one embodiment, the shift enable signal may cause theinstruction stored at the location pointed to by the read pointer to belatched by FIFO structure 650. The read pointer may be implemented usingone or more multiplexers that select the next instruction. In such anembodiment, the multiplexer selects may be based in part on the programorder of the instructions.

When a valid instruction is shifted into FIFO structure 650, controlfunctionality 675 may set the valid bit to indicate there is a validinstruction present. In the illustrated embodiment, as instructions areshifted out of queue structure 610 and locations become available,instructions may be received from fetch, for example, and stored in anyof the available locations. Control functionality 675 keeps track of theavailable locations and uses the write pointers to point to up to fourlocations to which incoming instructions should be written.

In one embodiment, if queue structure 610 is empty, as incominginstructions are received, control functionality 675 may determine whichincoming instruction is the first instruction in the program order. Inaddition, control functionality 675 may bypass that first instructiondirectly to FIFO structure 650 (denoted by the dashed bypass wire).

As described above in conjunction with the descriptions of FIG. 3through FIG. 5, in one embodiment, an instruction may be shifted intoFIFO structure 650 each cycle if the instruction currently stored withinFIFO structure 650 has been picked in the previous cycle. Theinstruction being shifted in may be read and evaluated by hazard anddependency checking logic (e.g., hazard detect and scheduling unit 406)in the pick stage for the current cycle. The hazard and dependency logicmay determine if hazards or dependencies exit which may prevent theinstruction from being picked. This type of checking may require a largeportion of the cycle. Thus, the shift signal may be provided to controlfunctionality 675 late in the cycle.

In one embodiment, control functionality 675 may select the nextinstruction to be shifted while the pick logic determines whether topick the instruction in FIFO structure 650. Accordingly, in response tothe shift enable signal, FIFO structure 650 may be configured to latchthe next oldest instruction provided by queue structure 610. FIFOstructure 650 may be implemented to have a small set up time whereby theinstruction just shifted in may be available for evaluation early in thenext cycle. In addition, in the absence of a shift signal, the oldestinstruction remains within FIFO structure 650; thereby allowing theoldest instruction to be read out in a subsequent cycle.

The buffer structure as illustrated in FIG. 6 may be repeated for eachthread. For example, in one embodiment, eight instruction buffers may beprovided, one for each of four threads in each of two thread groups(e.g., instruction buffers 0-7). As described above, an instruction maybe picked from each thread group in a given cycle according to thethread selection algorithm. Since instructions are provided to the pickunit 206 from the FIFO structure 650 of the selected thread'sinstruction buffer, the selected (or “picked”) instruction may bequickly provided to the pick unit at the beginning of the cycle. Assuch, the instructions may be provided to pick unit 206 more quicklythan if the entire instruction buffer was implemented as a queue and theinstruction had to be provided through a multiplexer stage of the queuestructure.

As described above, during the cycle in which an instruction is picked,hazard detect and scheduling logic 406 may check for certain hazardsthat may result in cancellation of the pick for that instruction. If thepick is cancelled, the instruction may remain in FIFO structure 650 ofits instruction buffer. If the pick is not cancelled, the nextinstruction in program order in the instruction buffer may be shiftedinto FIFO structure 650 of the instruction buffer so that it isavailable for possible selection in the next cycle. Furthermore, pickunit 206 provides a shift signal once it has determined whether or notthe pick will be cancelled. This determination may not be made untillate in the current cycle. The hybrid queue-FIFO structure 600 of theinstruction buffer may allow for this late determination since minimalsetup time may be needed to shift the next-oldest instruction into FIFOstructure 650 of the instruction buffer. Shifting the next-oldestinstruction into FIFO structure 650 from the queue structure 610 mayallow for the shift determination to be made later in the cycle than ifthe entire buffer was implemented as a conventional shift FIFO in whichall of the locations would have to be shifted.

It is noted that the hybrid queue-FIFO structure 600 of the instructionbuffer may require less power than a conventional shift-FIFO instructionbuffer design. In a clock-gated power management scheme, the clocks forthe hybrid queue-FIFO design are turned on when the hybrid queue-FIFO iswritten. Generally, in a conventional shift FIFO instruction bufferdesign, the clocks are turned on whenever the buffers are shifted aswell as written.

Exemplary System Embodiment

As described above, in some embodiments processor 10 of FIG. 1 may beconfigured to interface with a number of external devices. Oneembodiment of a system including processor 10 is illustrated in FIG. 7.In the illustrated embodiment, system 700 includes an instance ofprocessor 10 coupled to a system memory 710, a peripheral storage device720 and a boot device 730. System 700 is coupled to a network 740, whichis in turn coupled to another computer system 750. In some embodiments,system 700 may include more than one instance of the devices shown, suchas more than one processor 10, for example. In various embodiments,system 700 may be configured as a rack-mountable server system, astandalone system, or in any other suitable form factor. In someembodiments, system 700 may be configured as a client system rather thana server system.

In various embodiments, system memory 710 may comprise any suitable typeof system memory as described above, such as FB-DIMM, DDR/DDR2 SDRAM, orRDRAM®, for example. System memory 710 may include multiple discretebanks of memory controlled by discrete memory interfaces in embodimentsof processor 10 configured to provide multiple memory interfaces 130.Also, in some embodiments system memory 710 may include multipledifferent types of memory.

Peripheral storage device 720, in various embodiments, may includesupport for magnetic, optical, or solid-state storage media such as harddrives, optical disks, nonvolatile RAM devices, etc. In someembodiments, peripheral storage device 720 may include more complexstorage devices such as disk arrays or storage area networks (SANs),which may be coupled to processor 10 via a standard Small ComputerSystem Interface (SCSI), a Fibre Channel interface, a Firewire® (IEEE1394) interface, or another suitable interface. Additionally, it iscontemplated that in other embodiments, any other suitable peripheraldevices may be coupled to processor 10, such as multimedia devices,graphics/display devices, standard input/output devices, etc.

As described previously, in one embodiment boot device 730 may include adevice such as an FPGA or ASIC configured to coordinate initializationand boot of processor 10, such as from a power-on reset state.Additionally, in some embodiments boot device 730 may include asecondary computer system configured to allow access to administrativefunctions such as debug or test modes of processor 10.

Network 740 may include any suitable devices, media and/or protocol forinterconnecting computer systems, such as wired or wireless Ethernet,for example. In various embodiments, network 740 may include local areanetworks (LANs), wide area networks (WANs), telecommunication networks,or other suitable types of networks. In some embodiments, computersystem 750 may be similar to or identical in configuration toillustrated system 700, whereas in other embodiments, computer system750 may be substantially differently configured. For example, computersystem 750 may be a server system, a processor-based client system, astateless “thin” client system, a mobile device, etc.

Although the embodiments above have been described in considerabledetail, numerous variations and modifications will become apparent tothose skilled in the art once the above disclosure is fully appreciated.It is intended that the following claims be interpreted to embrace allsuch variations and modifications.

1. A multithreaded processor, comprising: a plurality of buffers, eachconfigured to store a plurality of instructions corresponding to arespective thread; and a pick unit coupled to the plurality of buffersand configured to pick from at least one of the plurality of buffers ina given cycle, a valid instruction based upon a thread selectionalgorithm; wherein the pick unit is further configured to cancel, in thegiven cycle, the picking of the valid instruction in response toreceiving a cancel indication.
 2. The multithreaded processor as recitedin claim 1, wherein the pick unit is further configured to concurrentlydetermine, for each of the respective threads, whether one or more waitconditions are present.
 3. The multithreaded processor as recited inclaim 2, wherein the pick unit is further configured to maintain each ofthe respective threads in one of a ready state and a wait statedependent upon whether the one or more wait conditions are present forthe respective threads.
 4. The multithreaded processor as recited inclaim 2, wherein the pick unit is further configured to generate thecancel indication in response to detecting that the one or more waitconditions are present for the currently picked instruction.
 5. Themultithreaded processor as recited in claim 3, wherein the selectionalgorithm includes picking a respective thread that is least recentlypicked and that has a valid instruction in the ready state.
 6. Themultithreaded processor as recited in claim 2, wherein the pick unit isfurther configured to cause a respective thread to transition from aready state to a wait state in response to detecting that the one ormore wait conditions are present for a corresponding one of theplurality of instructions.
 7. The multithreaded processor as recited inclaim 2, wherein the pick unit is further configured to cause therespective thread corresponding to the valid instruction that is pickedto transition from a ready state to a wait state in response todetecting that the one or more wait conditions are present for the validinstruction.
 8. The multithreaded processor as recited in claim 1,wherein the pick unit is further configured to cause the respectivethread to transition to a most recently picked thread in response to thepick unit picking the valid instruction.
 9. The multithreaded processoras recited in claim 1, wherein a specific location within each of theplurality of buffers includes a valid bit that indicates whether anyvalid instruction is stored therein.
 10. The multithreaded processor asrecited in claim 1, wherein the plurality of buffers is grouped into aplurality of thread groups, each thread group comprising a portion ofthe plurality of buffers, wherein the pick unit is further configured toindependently pick one instruction from each thread group in a givencycle.
 11. A method of selecting instructions with a multithreadedprocessor, said method comprising: storing a plurality of instructionscorresponding to a respective thread within a plurality of respectivebuffers; picking from at least one of the plurality of buffers in agiven cycle, a valid instruction based upon a thread selectionalgorithm; and canceling, in the given cycle, the picking of the validinstruction in response to receiving a cancel indication.
 12. The methodas recited in claim 11, further comprising concurrently determining, foreach of the respective threads, whether one or more wait conditions arepresent.
 13. The method as recited in claim 12, further comprisingmaintaining each of the respective threads in one of a ready state and await state dependent upon whether the one or more wait conditions arepresent for the respective threads.
 14. The method as recited in claim12, further comprising generating the cancel indication in response todetecting that the one or more wait conditions are present for thecurrently picked instruction.
 15. The method as recited in claim 13,wherein picking from at least one of the plurality of buffers in a givencycle, a valid instruction based upon a thread selection algorithmincludes picking a respective thread that is least recently picked andthat has a valid instruction in a ready state.
 16. The method as recitedin claim 12, wherein the pick unit is further configured to cause arespective thread to transition from a ready state to a wait state inresponse to detecting that the one or more wait conditions are presentfor a corresponding one of the plurality of instructions.
 17. The methodas recited in claim 12, further comprising causing the respective threadcorresponding to the valid instruction that is picked to transition froma ready state to a wait state in response to detecting that the one ormore wait conditions are present for the valid instruction.
 18. Themethod as recited in claim 11, further comprising causing the respectivethread to transition to a most recently picked thread in responsepicking the valid instruction.
 19. The method as recited in claim 11,further comprising indicating whether any valid instruction is stored ina specific location within each of the plurality of buffers using avalid bit therein.
 20. The method as recited in claim 1 1, furthercomprising grouping the plurality of respective buffers into a pluralityof thread groups, each thread group comprising a portion of theplurality of respective buffers and independently picking oneinstruction from each thread group in a given cycle.
 21. A system,comprising: a system memory; a multithreaded processor coupled to thesystem memory, wherein the multithreaded processor includes: a pluralityof buffers, each configured to store a plurality of instructionscorresponding to a respective thread; and a pick unit coupled to theplurality of buffers and configured to pick from at least one of theplurality of buffers in a given cycle, a valid instruction based upon athread selection algorithm; wherein the pick unit is further configuredto cancel, in the given cycle, the picking of the valid instruction inresponse to receiving a cancel indication.
 22. A multithreadedprocessor, comprising: a plurality of buffers, each configured to storea plurality of instructions corresponding to a respective thread; and apick unit coupled to the plurality of buffers and configured toconcurrently pick from one or more of the plurality of buffers in agiven cycle, a valid instruction based upon a least recently pickedselection algorithm; an execution pipeline coupled to the pick unit andconfigured to concurrently execute the valid instruction from each ofthe one or more of the plurality of buffers in a given cycle.
 23. Themultithreaded processor as recited in claim 22, wherein the pick unit isfurther configured to concurrently determine, for each of the respectivethreads, whether one or more wait conditions are present.
 24. Themultithreaded processor as recited in claim 23, wherein the pick unit isfurther configured to maintain each of the respective threads in one ofa ready state and a wait state dependent upon whether the one or morewait conditions are present for the respective threads.
 25. Themultithreaded processor as recited in claim 23, wherein the pick unit isfurther configured to cause a respective thread to transition from aready state to a wait state in response to detecting that the one ormore wait conditions are present for a corresponding one of theplurality of instructions.
 26. The multithreaded processor as recited inclaim 23, wherein the pick unit is further configured to cause therespective thread corresponding to the valid instruction that is pickedto transition from a ready state to a wait state in response todetecting that the one or more wait conditions are present for the validinstruction.
 27. The multithreaded processor as recited in claim 26,wherein the pick unit is further configured to cancel, in the givencycle, the picking of the valid instruction in response to receiving acancel indication.
 28. The multithreaded processor as recited in claim27, wherein the pick unit is further configured to generate the cancelindication in response to detecting that the one or more wait conditionsare present for the currently picked instruction.
 29. The multithreadedprocessor as recited in claim 22, wherein the selection algorithmincludes picking a respective thread that is least recently picked andthat has a valid instruction in the ready state.
 30. The multithreadedprocessor as recited in claim 22, wherein the pick unit is furtherconfigured to cause the respective thread to transition to a mostrecently picked thread in response to the pick unit picking the validinstruction.
 31. The multithreaded processor as recited in claim 22,wherein a specific location within each of the plurality of buffersincludes a valid bit that indicates whether any valid instruction isstored therein.
 32. The multithreaded processor as recited in claim 22,wherein the plurality of buffers is grouped into a plurality of threadgroups, each thread group comprising a portion of the plurality ofbuffers, wherein the pick unit is further configured to independentlypick one instruction from each thread group in a given cycle.
 33. Amethod of selecting instructions with a multithreaded processor, saidmethod comprising: storing a plurality of instructions corresponding toa respective thread within a plurality of respective buffers;concurrently picking from one or more of the plurality of buffers in agiven cycle, a valid instruction based upon a least recently pickedselection algorithm; and concurrently executing the valid instructionfrom each of the one or more of the plurality of buffers in a givencycle.
 34. The method as recited in claim 33 further comprisingconcurrently determining, for each of the respective threads, whetherone or more wait conditions are present.
 35. The method as recited inclaim 34 further comprising maintaining each of the respective threadsin one of a ready state and a wait state dependent upon whether the oneor more wait conditions are present for the respective threads.
 36. Themethod as recited in claim 34, wherein the pick unit is furtherconfigured to cause a respective thread to transition from a ready stateto a wait state in response to detecting that the one or more waitconditions are present for a corresponding one of the plurality ofinstructions.
 37. The method as recited in claim 34 further comprisingcausing the respective thread corresponding to the valid instructionthat is picked to transition from a ready state to a wait state inresponse to detecting that the one or more wait conditions are presentfor the valid instruction.
 38. The method as recited in claim 34 furthercomprising canceling, in the given cycle, the picking of the validinstruction in response to receiving a cancel indication.
 39. The methodas recited in claim 38 further comprising generating the cancelindication in response to detecting that the one or more wait conditionsare present for the currently picked instruction.
 40. The method asrecited in claim 33, wherein picking from the one or more of theplurality of buffers in a given cycle, a valid instruction based upon athread selection algorithm includes picking a respective thread that isleast recently picked and that has a valid instruction in a ready state.41. The method as recited in claim 33 further comprising indicatingwhether any valid instruction is stored in a specific location withineach of the plurality of buffers using a valid bit therein.
 42. Themethod as recited in claim 33 further comprising grouping the pluralityof respective buffers into a plurality of thread groups, each threadgroup comprising a portion of the plurality of respective buffers andindependently picking one instruction from each thread group in a givencycle.